Black Knight charges in to banish model blahs

I have not been in the mood to work on stuff lately. But with tax season, a job change, and my sis having surgery all behind me I thought it was time to get back in the game. Typical of my poor judgement, I picked Love Love Garden's (yes that's the company's name!) Black Knight, which is actually a resin conversion of one of Hasegawa's Mk.44 suits from Robot Battle V. Gotta love the box it came in too! The kit does not come with decals, and strangely all paint callouts on the modified Hasegawa instruction sheet have been mysteriously removed! But thankfully there are some nice photos of the completed kit available on line.

The Hasegawa plastic parts go together very easily, and the kit can be built entirely in modules that all come together in the end. The resin parts have heavy mold parting lines and such to clean up, but they fit well.

The resin parts have a rough cast texture, but the Hasegawa kit is perfectly smooth. To remedy this, some automotive glazing putty was thinned with Gunze Mr. Thinner and stippled on the plastic parts. Rather than mopping the mixture on, I avoided inside corners and add-on pieces to keep things sharp.

...but just barely. Hasegawa's feeble polycap joints were not designed to take the additional weight of the resin pieces. I'll need a stand.

Anyway, that is the state of play at the moment. At first I thought it was folly to choose this kit to restart the modeling fire, but the base kit and resin conversion parts were very easy to work with. Now to keep pushing to the finish line (and get back on the group builds)...

Following Fermis' advice, hopefully the rubbish before and after the photos will be gone forever.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4280/35603332156_db3ba4196c_k.jpg

Oh nuts, there is no "preview" button. Oh well here goes.

Anyway, just replacing the soft plastic (TEPE, not polyethylene or vinyl) molded cables with coil spring and mesh pipe. While the kit parts are well detailed and are nicely wiggly, the parting lines are impossible to clean up. Some solder or wire will be run inside the replacements to emulate the wigglyness of the kit parts.

Okay, it still doesn't work for me. I'm tech-challenged. Sucks to be me.

Thanks for the comments guys! A bit of progress, but not much. I was kind of busy yesterday with the BBQ grill.

The attachment point for the gun support arm (ala smartgun from "Aliens") was vague, so I just found the flattest spot on the body and glued it down. I made a shallow depression on the body where the arm ball joint was, to provide some clearance. Seems to have worked.

The body kind of reminds me of that giant catepillar monster from "Monsters vs Aliens". You know, with the snot thing...

The resin parts for the gun did not fit well, and neither did the plastic shield. After some attempts to get everything to match up, I just gave up and glued everything down. The gun muzzle had mold slip lines, so I cut it off and replaced it with a short piece of plastic rod. The bore was drilled out after the muzzle was set, to make things easier for my failing eyesight and motor control.

The Black Knight is a powered space suit designed for lunar surface attack. If you think it looks wacky, the base Mk.44 kit looks even worse, kind of like a robot Homer Simpson! The resin aft bulges and snout, while making the design even more bulky, gives it a cooler look in my eyes. It IS one of the ugliest robot-type kits I have though.

Our local show has a special catagory for building Revell's vintage P-51D and I don't think I'll be ready in time. This kit is friggin' horrible and it's like a hydra- every problem I solve two more pop up to bite me...

The competition is stiff this year and my models are not my best efforts. So no wins anticipated! But I appreciate the well wishes. That the competition is stiff is good for the contest because that means lots of good entries in the mecha category.

I added the Aliens APC to my model box just before heading out the door. There are a lot of ugly joints on the underside that I didn't bother to address, since I was just interested in being able to replace the batteries for the lighting. Again, no wins here. I just wanted to throw in something fun for people to look at.

And there are a lot of fun things that other people brought - I just love that aspect of model contests!

In the vendor's room, I only bought 2 kits, one for a friend. I got a Wave Destroid Defender for myself. I have been looking for this never reissued kit since pasing it up during it's initial run. I'm shopped out already, so it looks like no more models to add to the hoarder's stash.

So in four days, I got the Black Knight painted - not something I want to repeat any time soon. A lot of compromises and ugly cover-ups occurred that should have never happened under a more relaxed schedule. I tried oil washes for the first time, which promptly dissolved the paint UNDER several layers of Tamiya spray can clear coat. I was only waiting 12 hours between paint stages, so it's all my fault.

Gamera, yes that's the award that was handed out. No 1st, 2nd, or 3rd written anywhere.

Maybe they had to go that way due to the unusually low trophy sponsorship. I sponsored a trophy package under "The East Oahu Radical Splinter Faction Group". I have done so on three occasions. If club members just kick in a few dollars each, it is easy to raise the $80. Heck that's the going price of a large kit.